Tom came away from the latest BTCC rounds at Rockingham happy after 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishes in the day’s three races. A huge points haul which lifts him to 3rd overall in the Championship

Tom enjoyed his best results as a works Vauxhall driver in the team’s new Vectra with two podium finishes and a fighting drive to fourth place. It was a very successful return to Rockingham for the VXRacing team with Tom’s team mate, Fabrizio Giovanardi winning the first two races and following Tom home in the third.

The signs were there in practice and qualifying on Saturday that the Vectra drivers would be strong at Rockingham. Tom had a heavier car than his team mate thanks to the success ballast he had to carry following his performance at Brands last time out, but he was able to run lap times very close to Fabrizio’s.

An uncharacteristic mistake during qualifying meant Tom had a tense session after losing his fastest time half way through. On an in-lap the 22-year-old missed instructions to stop at the weigh bridge, incurring the penalty, and took until the end of the 30-minute session to climb back up to fourth;

"That was quite intense; I think I broke a sweat!" "The time I had disqualified was only 0.001s away from third place. What's frustrating is that on that lap I got held up at the chicane. I'm sure we could have had a one-two if things had gone my way but when I tried doing it again I couldn't string it together."The first race produced incident even before the start when Darren Turner’s SEAT had to be removed from the grid with a mechanical failure. When the race did start Tom got away well and settled into third place behind Fabrizio and Plato in the sole remaining SEAT. The race was fairly processional at the front until, with two laps to go, an oil spill caught all of the top three out and Tom found himself skidding through the gravel trap at the final corner. Following their off-track excursion, Tom managed to recover better than Plato and caught him on the run down to the first hairpin. Diving down the inside Tom out-braked the SEAT and stayed ahead to the chequered flag to claim 2nd place behind Fabrizio.The Luton-based manufacturer's domination continued in round five of the championship, with Tom enjoying an epic battle with RAC's Tom Onslow-Cole for 2nd place behind Fabrizio’s race winning drive. After trading places for the final few laps, Tom’s extra ballast began to tell and Onslow-Cole was able to gain an advantage out of the slower corners. Tom couldn’t find a way back past this time though and had to settle for a 3rd place finish.Two races, two podiums for Tom. It would be a tough job to make it three though as the final race would have the top ten finishers start in reverse order on the grid. This meant Tom would line up in 8th place.

After a fantastic start and a typically brave move round the outside at the first hairpin, Tom was already up to 4th by the end of the first lap. He then got tagged by John George in the Honda, spinning Tom onto the grass and down the order. Tom didn’t give up and with a hard charging drive it wasn’t long before he was back in 4th place again, holding that position until the end of the race.

Tom was suitably happy with his afternoon’s work and had enjoyed the close racing that the Rockingham layout produced;"I love this place; it's exciting and I had a real adrenalin rush racing here today. It reminded me of why I love this sport. The team is leaving really happy, leading the Team and Manufacturers Championships and second and third in the Drivers. I’ve had my best races since joining the Vauxhall team and I think we’ve shown that the Vectra is competitive with or without ballast and that is very encouraging. I can’t wait to go to Thruxton now, another circuit I really enjoy. When a car's quick on one circuit it's generally quick everywhere but we do run different tyres at Thruxton and we'll have no opportunity to test them. We'll have to work really hard to set it up at Thruxton."